an absolutely appalling 'blues jam' night in Worcester (at the Marrs Bar). The only time it was any good was when some woman who sang shit songs with her awful backing band for hours every week decided to do 'Killing Me Softly', and my mate decided to do the Wyclef Jean mcing ('One time!') over the top. Everyone was laughing except the band who didn't get the joke.

I just did a tour playing bass with a mate who was in a cult nineties indie act- the night before we'd played Gloucester guildhall, the promoter had sold loads of tickets at a tenner a pop, and loads of people showed up, we got paid, fed and had a great time.

Next night we turned up at 'marrs bar', to be told by the soundman that 'the promoter should have told you he doesn't actually promote, he just puts on the gigs, so if you want people to turn up you have to do your own press etc'

I don't really have songs that work so well acoustic and I have so little patience for the majority of that sort of performance that they became really depressing to be involved in.

Some people were utterly amazing but most were just boring and for some reason the genre seems to encourage STUPIDLY long songs from people.

I remember seeing a dude play two songs that were amazing and when we asked him after if he had CDs or anything he said something about loads of people wanting to record him but he didn't want to bother with that and just took off into the night.

Yeah, I'm always up for a jam. They had a regular jam night at this pub that shall remain nameless and locationless.

The musicians were excellent, but they had an unfortunately tendency to take requests from the peanut gallery. Which meant more often than not I'd be blagged into playing Californication or some other Chilis tune.

Best: Amazing versions of Everything Must Go and Perfect Day, me and two mates stomped through. The latter started off by Lou Reed, but ended up morphing into the BBC version, complete with audience participation.

Worst: A request for that 4 Non Blondes tune. I got out of that by pretending not to know how it went.

during my second year at uni. Regularly played in front of about 100 people. Really good for developing your voice and performance.

I generally did just covers, usually mixed it up between really good songs, and reinterpretations of cheesy ones like the Baywatch theme tune, and Back For Good. I once had the whole bar singing along to MMMBop by Hanson, this was only topped by a standing ovation after doing a wild version of Where Did You Sleep Last Night.

Everyone's nice there and you get a *bit* of an audience. I do my own songs because by that point in the night I can barely remember how to play anything. Once the sound guy tripped over the monitor and landed on his FACE. It's about as Rock'n'Roll as it gets.

Unitl I started getting regular gigs. It's actually a really good way to get used to being on a stage and performing in front of a crowd. Most acoustic songwriters who do them tend to be a bit bland for my tastes but it does make it all the better when you meet like-minded people and I made some of my best friends in London at shit open mic nights!

I definitely go into the "land of twee folk singers" and start being abrasive. My favourite open mic moment was at the Rhyhtm Factory in Whitechapel, where the open mic used to be in the front room. One week I was playing and two girls were talking in the front row. I decided to just play louder. Somehow with an acoustic guitar and a voice I made sufficient noise to attract sufficient noise complaints to lead to the Rhythm Factory being banned from having it's open mic in the front room, which is why it's now in the backroom instead.